I didn’t ask, “What’s the Underground Railroad?” but if I had, she would have been very surprised. And then she would have answered, “The Underground Railroad was the route that escaped slaves took on their road to freedom. Many times people opened their homes to escaped slaves, and the William Jackson family, in our town, was one such family and one such place.”

Now that’s something I understand: FREEDOM.

Today this home is a museum that you can visit. But me? I can stay outside, and that’s fine with me.

Mickey came into my life one day when I was pretty comfortable in my home. I love everybody, and the more creatures we have in our home, the happier I am, so I was anxious to become friends with Mickey. I had never made friends with a cat before, and now I had one in my own home! All the time!

Except that Mickey didn’t see it the same way I saw it.

Here is a photo of Mickey, as he looked one day when I went up to him, wagging my tail behind me, to play with him. You can see that he wasn’t too happy to have me around.

My Dad used to say, “Joey, watch out. Mickey doesn’t want to play with you.” He said, “Joey, wise up or you’re going to get an unforgettable lesson.”

I’m a friendly dog. I want to be everybody’s friend; I even wanted to be Mickey’s. But as a cat and dog combination, we had a relationship that drove our parents nuts. Mickey would lie down in my bed. He knew it was my bed and yet once he discovered it, he made a big point of laying in it.

I, in return, used to go upstairs, to where his food was, when nobody was looking, and eat his food and drink his water. My parents were aware that this was personal, since I would have water and food in my own bowls.

And so our game played out, for years.

The last few months of Mickey’s life, he learned to accept me. He would walk up to me and allow me to lick and kiss him. We were learning to act like brothers.

Then one morning, I lost my friend Mickey. He stopped moving. My mom picked him up and she cried and cried.

Mickey wasn’t around our home anymore after that and everybody was sad.